Hopetoun Brown

Return with a whole lotta hootin’ goodness!

Listen to new track ‘You Know I Know’
(feat. Sophie Burbery)

See Hopetoun Brown live with Finn Scholes
at WOMAD 2018!

Friday 20th October 2017 – In their brand new song ‘You Know I Know’, our favourite horn-tootin’ pair Hopetoun Brown ditch the stomp to share a drum-machine driven party saga about a weed-smokin’ womaniser.

In this speedy rap duet, the Hopetoun boys called up their neighbourhood synth scientist and MC, Sophie Burbery and Weird Together percussionist/bongo player Issac Chadderton. Alto sax player Callum Passells completes the lineup, playing a blistering solo in the first verse before a one-take improvised duel with Nick Atkinson’s tenor for the finale.

Curiously, Atkinson is also on lead-singer duties as Hopetoun Brown explore new sounds. Brass player and Hopetoun Brown’s usual singer Tim Stewart will be back on the mic soon enough, but for now, he’s overseeing production duties with the mercurial engineer Jol Mulholland, who recorded ‘You Know I Know’ at The Oven in Mt Eden.

Also just announced – Hopetoun Brown are excited to be on this year’s artist lineup for WOMAD NZ, held in Taranaki’s idyllic Brooklands Park. They will be joined on stage by trumpet wunderkind, Finn Scholes for Taranaki’s biggest knees-up this March 16-18th. Come and party with our favourite pair, and stay tuned for more upcoming show dates!

The new sound of the bass clarinet set Stewart and Atkinson off on a brief flurry of composition. At the time, Atkinson lived at 4 Hopetoun Street while Stewart resided in the heart of Ponsonby at 13 Brown Street. Hopetoun Brown was christened! At this stage, the duo simply performed instrumentals and it wasn’t long before Atkinson left Auckland again on another extended voyage, this time to the Antarctic Island of South Georgia. More than four years passed before Supergroove were reunited in October 2007, and Stewart and Atkinson began rehearsing and playing again. A horn section is like a band within a band. They often need their own rehearsals to get tight for the full band practices, but it can get a bit dull playing the horn lines for ‘Can’t Get Enough’ over and over, so our heavy honking pair began to work up a small repertoire of numbers to work on their intonation and tightness.

One day, Stewart suggested Atkinson should play the bass line for a New Orleans standard ‘St James Infirmary Blues’. It was as close to a scene from Nashville as the boys had ever experienced. Atkinson played the line on his lonely and woody sounding bass clarinet and Stewart sang the lyrics, quietly at first, before building to a thunderous stomping crescendo that tapered to a tender trumpet coda. They looked at each other once the song was finished… magic! They really had something new. The bass clarinet and Stewart’s voice were perfect together and it wasn’t long before Hopetoun Brown played their first show at the Kingsland Folk Club.